Google Lets Users Plan ‘Digital Afterlife’ By Naming Heirs

Google on Wednesday became one of the first major Internet companies to put control of data after death directly into the hands of its users.

The Internet giant unveiled a dashboard for users of its Gmail, Google+, cloud storage Drive, Picasa albums, YouTube and other services that lets people identify what they’d like to happen to their data after they pass away or become inactive for an extended period of time. You can choose to delete some or all of the data after three, six, nine or 12 months of inactivity, or pass data from the accounts along to one or more other people.

Call them your Google heirs. Google, for the record, calls the offering its “Inactive Account Manager.”

“We hope that this new feature will enable you to plan your digital afterlife–in a way that protects your privacy and security — and make life easier for your loved ones after you’re gone,” wrote Google product manager Andreas Tuerk in a blog post.

Handling digital property after death isn’t a problem most people want to think about while they’re living. But it can cause major legal and emotional challenges for survivors and relatives, as the Journal reported earlier this year.

Because of U.S. privacy laws and other concerns, many major Internet services don’t allow people to pass control of accounts along to other people, even if they stipulate it in a will. Most Internet companies handle after-death data and account control differently and lawmakers are increasingly looking into digital property legislation Facebook, for example, requires a deceased person’s account either be shut down or “memorialized” in a way that no other person can post from it or curate it.

Google’s approach still doesn’t allow users to pass actual control of accounts after death–just the data. For example, there’s no option that would allow your Google heirs to send Gmail under your name or curate your Google+ account.

But Google’s approach is still novel in that it gives people relatively easy tools to make choices about their data while they’re living. Will other Internet companies follow?